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Kayak and Canoe Design Bulletin Board
Re: Baidarka thingamajig n stuff
Posted By: Ian Johnston In Response To: Re: Baidarka thingamajig n stuff (Pete WP)
Date: Monday, 31 January 2000, at 9:41 p.m.
Hi Pete,
I think that you are not giving these early people enough credit! If you take a intellegent outdoors type person today and plunk them down in the environment that many of these people endured and even gave them modern equipment, most would not survive. These people were extremely ingenious and intellegent. To say that they had no way of measuring the improved performance of a new design is like saying there is no sense in my trying different designs when I decide to buy a new kayak because I don't have a way to measure them!
I test drive many cars before a buy one! I try on different types of shoes before I buy them! I have no way to measure these??
What we see is the last design innovation. We don't see the progression of the design. To say that these people just stuck something on the front of their boat isn't giving them credit for their innovation. The fact that many of the boats that survived have this type of bow is an indication that these people knew exactly what the benefits were!
True science doesn't care where an idea comes from!! Einstein was a telegraph operator when he came up with the theory of relativity! Science has a way to test any idea and that is through observation, so it doesn't need to check credentials. If a scientist argues a point on the credentials of its originator then he doesn't know his stuff. I think you will find today that these arguments are in fun and usually have money riding on them!
Arguments start when money (or its equivalent) is involved. Science is concerned with truth. Each new discovery brings science closer to the truth of things so even disproving an idea is a benefit.
Science is a process, anyone who follows the process is a scientist. If the original builders followed a process of observation and testing then they are as much scientists as any engineer, physicist, biologist, etc. with a degree is today.
Don't get me started on religion now!!!! {:o)
I love a good rant!
Ian
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